CAGD Career Development Seminar

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CAGD Career Development Seminar

• Matt Tsien
• 24 September 2005

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Outline

• What is career success?
• Whos responsibility is it?
• Key ingredients of success
• Some analogies
• Mentorship
• Common pitfalls
• A Few Considerations
• Some enablers

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What is Career Success ?

• Is it being a CEO ?
• Is it being a Chief Engineer?
• Is it being a Senior Research Scientist?
• Is it simply loving what you do?
• Its ultimately up to YOU to define !

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Whos Responsible for Your Career?

• Is it your manager ?
• Is it your mentor ?
• Is it your HR department ?
• No, it is YOU !
• No one knows you better
• No one cares more about your career
• If you dont take charge, no one will

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Key Ingredients of Success

• Talents and Abilities
• Hard work
• Chance

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Some Analogies

• Career as a triathlon
• It requires endurance (its not a sprint)
• It requires multiple skills (not a single talent)
• It requires training (through hard work)
• Its filled with ups downs, twists turns
• It requires a desire to win
• Career as the Tour de France
• You want your team to win and
• You want to win

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Mentorship

• Your mentor is NOT your career broker
• Make sure the relationship is mutual
• The mentor wants to mentor, and you want to be
  mentored
• Maintain an open, trusting, and respectful
  relationship
• Seek advice, listen hard, and follow through
• Learn from your mentors experience
• Leverage your mentors contacts
• Focus on how to improve performance vs. always
  looking for the next assignment
• Be grateful

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Common Pitfalls

• Over fixation on career development
• Being too boastful and self-confident
• Under focus on career development
• Too much humility
• Self esteem too low
• Failure to express aspirations
• Not seeing the big picture
• Not demonstrating self-initiative
• Not demonstrating good teamwork (individualism)
• Not willing to make sacrifices (go the extra
  mile)
• Being driven by politics
• Ignoring politics

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A Few Considerations

• Relationships
• Build em before you need em
• Make it a two way street
• 360 degree management
• Team work
• Getting things done while getting along
• Leverage
• You cant know everything nor do everything
  yourself
• Communications
• Maintaining a robust two-way dialogue
• Stay informed, and keep others informed
• Enjoying what you do

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Some Enablers

• Integrity
• Integrity beyond a shadow of doubt
• Keeping promises and commitments
• Admitting mistakes
• Putting team, company and customers first
• Loyalty
• To leadership, to team, to company
• Alignment
• Understanding the organizations priorities
• Attitude
• Staying positive
• Being optimistic
• Professionalism
• Perception is reality
• Work Ethic
• No nonsense focus on delivering results
• Excellence
• Establishing a track record of performance
• Doing the current job extremely well

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Some Enablers

• Vision
• Knowing the end-game
• Initiative
• Anticipate issues
• Be self-starting and self-directed
• Be proactive
• Assertiveness
• Pursuing your convictions the right way
• Continuous Improvement
• Staying current
• Learning from mistakes
• Energy and Stamina
• Charisma

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Summary

• Career success requires a combination of talents
  abilities, hard work, and luck
• A career is a long term journey
• You need to take primary responsibility for that
  journey
• Stay positive, be assertive, take initiative